Metal: Hellsinger review – thrash your foes to the beat in this mesmerising shooter

PC (version tested), PlayStation 5, Xbox; The Outsiders/Funcom
The Outsiders' impressive debut combines the gunplay of Doom with the musical button-mashing of Guitar Hero

First-person shooters and heavy metal go together like AC/DC concerts and audiologist appointments. Their relationship stretches back to 1993's Doom, for which composer Bobby Prince borrowed heavily from the music of Alice in Chains and Pantera. But they've never been so closely intertwined as in Metal: Hellsinger, where the music dictates the rhythm by which you must slay demonic enemies.

The debut game from Swedish studio The Outsiders, Hellsinger has you assuming control of a winged demoness as she attempts a scorching jailbreak from the deepest circle of hell. Referred to simply as The Unknown, your fiendish avatar is uniquely attuned to the natural rhythm of the cosmos, able to draw power from it as she battles the thralls of hell's overseer, an off-brand version of the devil known as the Red Judge.